Demand for public cloud services is expected to accelerate growth in the UK IT sector, even after recent declines due to the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a new report by Information Services Group (ISG), the global technology research and advisory firm.
The 2020 ISG Provider Lens Public Cloud – Solutions and Services Report for the U.K. finds that while some IT demand has declined this year, especially in the area of traditional managed services, demand for public cloud services is growing. Large enterprises are moving to the cloud faster than their smaller counterparts, but even small and medium-sized companies are showing increasing interest in infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) offerings.
“U.K. businesses are steadily adopting a cloud-first approach, and a growing number of companies can foresee a time when they will move a large majority of their IT to the cloud,” said Bryn Barlow, partner and head of ISG North Europe.
The report sees growing demand for public cloud services in the UK to support the ongoing shift to remote working due to the pandemic, even as managed services may lag behind. Companies in the UK and elsewhere in Europe are looking to cloud services to help them automate work and business processes that are needed in remote-work scenarios.
Enterprises also are seeing the power of cloud services and solutions to address consumer needs, the report says. Many enterprises in the UK are focused on a multi-cloud strategy and on building cloud-native solutions. They are seeking service providers that can deliver the most value for their IT investment and want the ability to move their data and avoid vendor lock-in.
UK enterprises frequently want to use more than one hyperscaler because each one has particular strengths related to vertical solutions, pricing and other factors. However, enterprises see some barriers to a multi-cloud setup, including orchestrating their workloads. Many customers are turning to service providers to help them manage multi-cloud environments.
The report sees many companies interested in IaaS, even though some large enterprises haven’t been able to fully eliminate their depreciated hardware assets and move completely to the cloud. Many enterprises continue to operate in hybrid cloud and on-premises IT environments.
The growth in public cloud adoption in the UK is also due to cloud-native application development and the increasing use of containerisation and microservices technologies for applications development and deployment, the report says.
The 2020 ISG Provider Lens Public Cloud – Solutions and Services Report for the UK evaluates the capabilities of 52 providers across seven quadrants: Consulting and Transformational Services for Large Accounts; Consulting and Transformational Services for the Midmarket; Governance, Risk and Compliance Services; Managed Public Cloud Services for Large Accounts; Managed Public Cloud Services for the Midmarket; SAP HANA Infrastructure Services, and Hyperscale Infrastructure and Platform Services.
The report names Rackspace Technology as a leader in three quadrants, and Accenture, Atos, AWS, CANCOM, Capgemini, Claranet, Cloudreach, Computacenter, Fujitsu, HCL, Hexaware, IBM, Infosys, Lemongrass Consulting, Microsoft, TCS and Wipro as leaders in two. Cognizant, Deloitte, DXC Technology, Ensono, EY, Google, KPMG, PwC and Unisys are named as leaders in one quadrant.
In addition, Mindtree was named a Rising Star—a company with a “promising portfolio” and “high future potential” by ISG’s definition—in two quadrants. Claranet, Coforge, Computacenter, DXC Technology and Ensono were named Rising Stars in one quadrant each.
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